Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke by phone with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, the Kremlin said, to discuss various developments in the Middle East, including recent sectarian violence in Syria and Iran’s nuclear program.

During the call, Putin stressed Syria’s territorial integrity, the Kremlin said, after sectarian violence in the Druze majority city of Sweida earlier this month prompted Israeli intervention in the form of airstrikes against Syrian military targets in both Sweida and Damascus.

Clashes in the Druze-majority Sweida province, which began on July 13 and ended with a ceasefire a week later, initially involved Druze fighters and Sunni Bedouin tribes, but quickly widened with the intervention of government forces on behalf of the Bedouin, according to witnesses, experts and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor.

The war monitor claimed the violence killed more than 1,400 people, mostly Druze, and accused government personnel of summarily executing more than 250 Druze civilians.

Putin, who has been waging war and conquering territory belonging to neighboring Ukraine for the past three years,........

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